Warm Motivation
> This is a mess. Total mess.
> Lots of toxic clauses, huh? Mind if I ask you to check the parts that could be a problem?
> Of course. I’ll sort them by severity and put them into Excel for you.
Badugi shook its head the moment it saw JH Medical’s contract.
Even to me, it was a disaster. I wondered how much worse it had to be for smart little Badugi to react like that.
But that only made things better.
It meant I could plan something entertaining around it.
“Seonghun hyung.”
“Yeah?”
“Let’s come up with a fun plan.”
I called him over right away.
Seonghun hyung, puzzled by my grin, stared hard at the screen of my laptop.
“A JH Medical contract? You’re smiling because you got this?”
“No. The contract is complete trash.”
“Then why are you smiling?”
“Because it’s time for some righteous comeuppance.”
Seonghun hyung looked at me like I’d lost my mind, then finally understood what I meant.
Trash contract. Righteous comeuppance. A plan.
“You’re not worried about the fallout from that comeuppance?”
His face went through a whole sequence in order: This is going to be fun, Is this okay?, Maybe it’ll be okay.
“I’m making the plan so the fallout won’t come.”
At that, Seonghun hyung fell into thought for a moment.
“Even if I tell you not to do it, you’ll still do it, won’t you?”
“Possibly?”
“Mm. Then it’s easier on the nerves if I help plan it with you.”
“As expected of a wise man.”
I clapped, and Seonghun hyung shook his head at me again.
Still, there was no hiding the interest in his eyes.
“If we’re doing it, we might as well make the plan airtight.”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
JH Medical and Kang Sangyoon.
The people who had ruined my previous life.
The surest way to get revenge on them was for TA Medical to succeed.
Shake up the industry. Stir up anxiety. Feed the competition.
It would be a long road, but it would be full of moments that meant something to me.
And I had already taken the first step toward that.
“Oh? Wait, are you Kim Siwon?!”
At this tense but exciting starting point, I decided to steady my mind by revisiting an old memory I hadn’t seen in a long time.
“You’ve been well?”
“Of course! I saw you on TV too!!”
The orphanage.
Among all my memories, even the oldest ones began there.
My life had been abandoned by my parents and by the world when I was so young I couldn’t even remember it.
The place that brought light into that life was the orphanage.
Unlike the orphanages in some sensational fiction or biased portrayals, it was a place that loved me and supported me.
It was, in effect, the place that gave me my second life.
“Which is better, the TV or the real thing?”
“Oh, obviously the TV! You’d cut your hair and dress all neat and proper on there!”
The director laughed out loud and tapped my arm lightly.
But despite that cheerful voice, her eyes were glistening with tears.
That caught me a little off guard too.
“W-why are you crying all of a sudden?”
“Who’s crying? I’m just surprised!”
Embarrassed, she barked the words out at me.
Fortunately, it looked like the tears had pulled back in an instant.
“What are you so surprised about? That I grew up too well?”
“Because it’s been way too long since you came by! I thought you were dead, you brat!”
In my last life, I had truly lived with my eyes fixed only forward.
All I cared about was development and business success.
Because of that, I had neglected the people I should have been thankful to, the people I was thankful for.
I hadn’t visited this precious orphanage once after entering university.
It was a mistake born from being drunk on the idea that I had “grown up well on my own at the orphanage.”
“I’m not dead, and I’ve worked myself to death, yes.”
“You ain’t working yourself to death now?”
“Mm. Almost to the point of dying?”
“That’s more like it! Have you eaten?”
True to the director who always swore that a full belly was everything, she asked about my meal right away.
I answered with complete confidence.
“Gather the kids. I’m here to buy them lunch.”
“What?”
Leaving the director there, still looking lost, I headed into the orphanage building.
It was old, but carefully and lovingly decorated to the best of its ability.
It was strange how familiar it still felt even after all this time.
“Hey, hey. Pay your tuition instead! What are you buying lunch for?”
She didn’t even give me time to sink into the nostalgia before she was shaking my arm like crazy.
But I just shook my head firmly and smiled at her.
“I’m the president of a company that’s even been on TV. I can afford this much.”
That sent her into a flustered panic, and she hurried to stop me.
“Good grief, you can’t just start spending money the minute your business gets successful!”
“No, that’s not what I mean.”
“It isn’t? Then sit down! Spending money becomes a habit, a habit!!”
“Kids! Anyone want jajangmyeon and sweet-and-sour pork from the Chinese place?! I’ll buy!”
It was obvious the conversation between me and the director was going nowhere, so I barged straight into the playroom.
The kids, gathered in little clusters and playing, all turned to stare at me in surprise.
Then they processed what I’d said, and their faces lit up at once.
“Jajangmyeon and sweet-and-sour pork?! Me!!”
“Sweet-and-sour pork?!”
“Can we get jjamppong too?!”
The children’s eyes were practically sparkling, and the director looked at them with her head hanging low.
“You’ve gotten more stubborn, you know that? More stubborn.”
“You can’t run a business without stubbornness.”
Leaving the director shaking her head behind me, I took the children’s orders and called the Chinese restaurant.
Of course, the food arrived sooner than expected.
“Mister, did you come here to volunteer?”
While waiting for the meal, I looked around, but hardly any of the children I remembered were still here.
The kids around my age who had been close to me had moved out on their own, and the others had grown so much in just a few years that it was hard to recognize their faces.
“Hyung, are you really Kim Siwon hyung?”
Still, my face apparently hadn’t changed that much, because one of them recognized me and came over to talk.
“Yeah. Do you remember me?”
“No, the director just calls you that.”
At that brutally honest answer, I burst out laughing.
Then, behind that bold child, the others who had only been sneaking shy glances at me came rushing over to speak too.
“Mister, did you come here to volunteer too?”
“How old are you, mister?”
“Mister, I like pizza, though.”
At the children’s questions, which had no rhyme or reason to them, I answered each one in turn.
“Not volunteering. I lived here too, so I came by to visit. I’m twenty-three. I’ll buy pizza next time.”
“You left when you were twenty-three, mister?”
“I lived in a gifted-student dorm, so I became independent at seventeen.”
“You became independent?”
“Yeah. I went out and lived on my own.”
“Do we have to leave when we’re seventeen too? Can we only live here for ten years?”
“Mm.”
Among those innocent questions, I felt a pang of sadness.
The orphanage could not support a child’s whole life.
It existed so it could care for as many children as possible.
So once they turned nineteen, whether they were ready or not, they had to stand on their own.
It was an unavoidable system, but there were many cases where that earlier-than-average step into the world was brutally hard.
“Director. What does the government provide these days for kids who are becoming independent?”
“There are self-reliance support programs and the like. Why?”
“Compared with back then, they support independence much more solidly now, right?”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to call it solid. Why? If it seems lacking, are you thinking of adding support yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Huh?”
What I had learned after scraping through my previous life was that people like the director were rare in this world.
As a child, I had hated this small, old orphanage. But through my current eyes, it was a place filled with an absurd amount of care and effort.
I had been able to grow because more people cared than I had realized.
So this time, too, I wanted to live in a way that contributed even a little to keeping this place alive.
“What, you make money now?”
“A little.”
“Your company’s still tiny, though. Are you even making sales?”
“They’ll come, slowly.”
“Then think about giving back after it’s coming in steadily every month! Your own nose is still hanging by a thread, you know!!”
Unfortunately, the director didn’t want to take anything from me.
She said it felt like stripping money from a child who still hadn’t produced any visible social success.
“Fine, then if I want to do something, I guess I’d better get successful faster!”
“Right, succeed first and then do something!”
“Yes, yes.”
That was motivation again, right there.
“I’ll try to visit more often.”
“Come after you succeed. And when you do, come back but don’t go throwing money around again.”
“Oh, there she goes nagging again.”
I was really glad I’d worked up the courage to come.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“Kim Siwon! Kim Siwon!”
“Yeah, what is it?”
Back at the club room after leaving the orphanage, Seonghun hyung and everyone else suddenly called my name in a hurry the moment they saw me.
Seeing them all fidgeting around a table told me something had definitely happened.
“You’re not about to run off somewhere again, right? We’ve got some urgent big news!”
“I’m not going anywhere. What is it?”
I went over to the table, set down my bag, and sat.
Then Seonghun hyung showed me an email on his laptop.
“What is it?”
“A request to appear on a broadcast.”
“Oh. Really? What kind?”
“A general-audience talk show hosted by the nation’s MC. Read it yourself.”
I read the email, letting myself get a little excited by the reactions of the club members, who were all practically glowing with excitement.
And only after reading it through did I realize they weren’t exaggerating at all.
“Isn’t this one of the most influential programs in the country?”
“That’s what I said!!”
It was news that made the corners of my mouth rise without effort.
Literally the top-rated TV program in the country, hosted by the so-called nation’s MC.
“The only downside is that we have to film in two days. We need to send in the preliminary questions by today.”
“How is that a downside? It’s better than having the appearance suddenly canceled.”
I immediately pulled out my laptop and checked the preliminary questionnaire.
From the look of it, it was full of only the most basic questions, which meant they really were scrambling to find someone to fill the slot.
“For now, reply that we’ll appear. Say we’ll send the questionnaire within an hour.”
“Got it.”
“Wow, we’re about to get insanely famous, aren’t we?!”
The others were all delighted.
I was delighted too.
For a slightly different reason.
“Ah.”
“Hm?”
“Siwon, are you maybe going to do that on this show?”
As expected of Seonghun hyung.
His instincts were top-tier.
“Right. It’s hard to find a chance like this.”
“You’re really doing it?”
“I’m really going to do it.”
Seonghun hyung, worried now, looked at me, then nodded with a troubled expression, while the others beside him stared at us completely lost.
“What? What is it? Tell us too!”
“No secrets on the team! What is it?”
I answered with a small smile.
“It’s a righteous comeuppance show run by a pitiful college student.”
“Huh?”
“You should answer the questionnaire. I’ll explain it to the others.”
Seonghun hyung explained our plan to the others, carefully and step by step.
Their reactions were all over the map.
“Can we even do that?”
“Yeah. I think we can.”
“Kim Siwon’s head really does produce weird things.”
“He is a bit of a nutcase.”
“Hey, hey. I can hear you, guys.”
Fortunately, no one seemed strongly against it.
They trusted that there had to be a reason I was doing this.
Now, riding on that trust, it was time to begin JH Medical’s downfall show, or at the very least Kang Sangyoon’s descent into hell.
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